


Empathy

by last_illusions (injured_eternity)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-08
Updated: 2009-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-24 03:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injured_eternity/pseuds/last_illusions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d gone walking in the rain once in California, only to find that when it rains in the West, it’s also far, far colder than it should be.  Set in early season 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empathy

It rains almost the entire week of his divorce. In the midst of bitterness that Haley couldn’t even tell him to his face (she left the papers on the dining room table and let him come home to an empty house instead), getting the team accustomed to Jason’s absence and then Dave’s appearance, and a bizarre case in which a group of men begin killing their wives (fate has a cruel sense of humour, he’s been told), he doesn’t think about it, just tries to avoid it.

Then the case is over, but his divorce is far from it. In a group of ten men bound to the same twisted tenets of belief, they lost nine women, and all he can do is thank god none of them had daughters. They saved one, yes, but it still feels like a failure, and he hates failure. (It always makes him think of his father.)

It is, perhaps, why he’s on the roof of the Academy at 1900h, head bowed and hands gripping the railing as if it’s his last lifeline. His team has gone home, he has none to go to, and he’s standing in the rain—likely ruining his thousand-dollar suit. He’s always loved rain, which is why he’s stayed on the East Coast as much as possible. He’d gone walking in the rain once in California, only to find that when it rains in the West, it’s also far, far colder than it should be. In Virginia, you can walk in the rain without getting chilled to the bone, though the deluge he’s under at the moment is a little on the extreme side.

Over the pounding of the water, he doesn’t hear the access door open, doesn’t hear the footsteps until Dave is right behind him.

“It’s raining,” the older man tells him wryly, but his tone is measured, gentle, like he’s trying to avoid startling an already skittish horse.

“You’re wet,” Aaron manages after a moment of startled silence, almost matching the dryness.

“You should have brought an umbrella,” comes the amused response.

Silence, then—or as much as can be achieved when the heavens appear to be flooding.

“What are you still doing here?” he asks finally.

Dave turns to him, that inscrutable expression of his on his face. “I could ask you the same thing.”

He says nothing. “The office was hot,” is all he comes up with after a moment, deadpan.

There’s a level of glibness he can get away with around Dave, who just shakes his head. A pause of his own; then, “When did she leave?”

Aaron jumps as though he’s been physically shocked; the question caught him off-guard, and though he pulls himself together, Dave doesn’t miss the slip. “I never said—”

“I know,” Dave reminds him. “I’ve been divorced three times, remember? I know what it looks like.”

“I don’t—”

“Aaron.”

The one word, and the protest dies on his lips; his shoulders slump—a degree almost unnoticeable in another man, but in Aaron Hotchner, he might as well have collapsed.

“Monday,” he admits, barely audible over the rain.

“Idiot,” Dave admonishes softly, bracing his forearms against the railing, shoulder-to-shoulder with the other agent. _You should have said something_. The last goes unsaid, but the younger man hears it anyway.

“Yeah,” he says.

They do nothing but stand there for long minutes, though Dave enjoys rain a hell of a lot less. “C’mon,” he says finally, straightening, and Aaron just shoots him a puzzled look. “You look like you could use a drink,” he elaborates, “and we should both get out of this rain. I’m freezing.”

“It’s seventy degrees out here,” the taller man protests, and he rolls his eyes.

“And I’m soaked, so it’s cold.”

His look says, “shut up” as clearly as if he’d said it aloud, and Aaron grins for the first time in days. He does, however, follow his friend.


End file.
